“Running packages. Moving cash. Dropping off things I knew better than to ask about.” His mouth hardens. “Started when I was fourteen. Paid well enough to make it easy to ignore what kind of men I was making money for.”
My chest tightens. I can see it too clearly, a younger version of him getting pulled into that life because it paid and because someone taught him to call it useful.
I shake my head. “That’s not a childhood. That’s exploitation.”
He shrugs and nods at the same time. “North and Luca were the first people in my life who didn’t want anything from me.Didn’t judge when I drew them into situations where we traded our morals for money for a bit to build a new, better life for us. All that changes a man.”
My chest hurts. “I would’ve never guessed,” I say quietly.
“Good.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “Then I’ve changed enough to be a different person.”
“I’m guessing you’re not going to expand the wholetraded our moralspart if I ask?” I grin his way.
That gets me a real smile that curls upward slowly, dangerously, giving me the answer I expected. He points at me. “Your turn. Real Adelaide.”
I drag my fingers through the wax on my board, buying myself a second. “I grew up in Whispering Grove and spent most of my teenage years trying not to suffocate there. I left the first second I could and told myself I’d never miss it.” I glance up at him. “My brother still lives there. His pack, his Omega. I think they’re probably going to have a baby soon.”
His whole face softens. “You want to be there.”
“So badly it’s embarrassing.” I smile despite myself. “I want to be the aunt who teaches the child terrible songs and buys them loud toys and then gives them back the second they start crying.”
Ace laughs. “I can see that perfectly.”
“Thank you. I plan to be a menace.”
“I don’t doubt it.” The teasing eases out of his face. “You’d be good at it.”
That means more than I want it to, because I’m pretty sure he isn’t referring to the toys or the noise, but the loving part and the showing-up part. I try to cover how much that affects me with a smile. “You say alarmingly sweet things for a man who spent half of yesterday making me nervous on purpose.”
His mouth curves. “You were?”
“Please. You know I was.”
“I was enjoying how hard you were trying not to let it show.”
I point at him. “That is deeply unfair.”
“It was very entertaining.” He shifts a little closer on the board, water rocking us gently between sentences. “And for the record, you weren’t exactly unaffected either.”
“You’re very confident.”
“I don’t need confidence.” His voice drops just enough to make my stomach tighten. “I remember exactly how you sounded every time I got too close on the plane.”
Heat rushes through me so fast it feels vicious. I shift on my board, suddenly very aware of the sun on my skin, the water between us, the fact that he’s sitting there saying things like that with a completely straight face. That is an infuriatingly difficult thing to argue with.
Then he says, quieter, “You should probably be careful.”
“With what?”
His voice drops a little. “I’m already trying very hard not to come over there.”
My whole body reacts to that. A pulse deep in my gut, my fingers tightening on the edge of the board. I should say something clever. “What would happen if you did?” Okay, that was terrible.
His gaze holds mine. Steady. Heated. And there’s no amusement on his face now. “I’d kiss you,” he says. “And I don’t think I’d stop at one.”
My breath catches so hard it hurts. The wave rocking us is small, barely anything, but it feels like the whole ocean tilted.
“This is exactly why I left while you were asleep.”
